Stardock has announced the official launch of their Impulse Client Phase IV. The update brings a completely redesigned interface which closely resembles features from Windows 7. The entire store has been redesigned, and there's now a rating system for games purchased which appear on the store as well.
With the launch of the client comes beta sign ups for the Stardock's Ready to Play match making system. We got a hands on demo of this at PAX 09 and came away fairly impressed.
Ready to Play works a bit like a chat program mixed with a Facebook personality quiz. Once you sign in you'll answer a few questions about how you like to game. For instance are you competitive? Do you value your time? What region are you in? These over arching questions help determine who you match up with. All of your Impulse titles will be automatically added to the system, but you are able to add executables from just about anything on your PC.
After that it's simply "find matches" and Ready to Play will return other gamers like you with the same game. A new chat window will open so you can chat it up a bit and decide to start, and then from there you can launch into your game.
It'll be interesting to see just how fast and well the system works once it gets loaded with gamer data. The potential is there so you'll never be without a co-op partner, Ready to Play and Stardock just need the gamers to adopt it to make it work.
To sign up for the beta check out the official Impulse site or look right inside your Impulse client!